


Incaensor

by debtdoctor



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Iron Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Dragon Age Fusion, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Minor Original Character(s), Slavery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-07
Updated: 2015-12-07
Packaged: 2018-05-05 13:00:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5376122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/debtdoctor/pseuds/debtdoctor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pepper was kidnapped and sold to House Stark when she was very young. A short drabble on how she became Young Master Stark's personal attendant.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Incaensor

Pepper doesn’t remember much of Kirkwall.

She knows she was born in the Alienage. She knows she once had the last name “Potts”, as her father was a potter’s assistant. She knows she had an older brother who would call her Virginia and they would run barefoot in the shade of the Vhenadahl on hot days.

She hasn’t been called Virginia in a long time.

 

She remembers they took her at the age of seven. Four men bound and gagged her and her family in the night, loaded them onto a ship, and not three weeks later she was standing on the auction block in Minrathous.

She was sold on the premise that with hair bright as a bell-pepper, she’d be a great beauty one day, if only one of the fine masters wanted to make a proper investment in a body slave.

She’s never sure if she should thank the Creators or the Maker that it was House Stark that bought her. She always prays to both, just in case.

 

Pepper was dropped into the care of the old woman Julia, who taught her the language and how to care for the herb garden. Sometimes she mucked out the chicken coop or the stables. Nothing glamorous, but she knew the worst she’d get under Julia’s eye was a good smack, or, if she was feeling particularly cranky, a box of the ears.

She thought she’d escape one day; rescue her family and return home. Then she came into her magic.

 

 _Incaensor_.

 

She was immediately brought to Master Stark for appraisal, and put under the tutelage of one of his apprentices.

 

_If you fail to teach even this child the basics, I cannot see what use you would be as a tutor to my son._

 

She learned to read. She learned the need for meditation, and to never speak to demons. She heard of the dangers and immorality of blood magic, all while pretending not to notice the thin, straight lines that marked where her teacher's robes had been mended in the sleeves. She made small flames, and learned that the master’s attention brought attention from all, and little of it was good.

 

_A danger if not controlled._

She learned to hide, and to move from place to place quickly without being seen. She learned who said what rumors, and she remembered their names.

Aurel called her  _saarebas_ , once, hissed it as he’d carried a stack of towels down the hall. He’d at least had the last part right.

On the day she succeeded in summoning her first and only wisp, Master Stark declared her training complete, and reassigned her to mind the household. She was sixteen.

 

When she was seventeen, she’d woken up in the middle of the night and realized she’d forgotten to switch the pillows in the guest parlor in anticipation of Master Stark’s visitors.

The mistake saved the life of the young Master Stark, who had fallen asleep at the couch. She’d blinded the would-be assailant with a flash of light, and kicked his knees until she heard them snap.

Young Master Stark had wanted her trained as his personal bodyguard.

 

She stated only that she had a preference for knives.

**Author's Note:**

> Based on a conversation with Katadactyl.


End file.
